


synesthesia

by fantastiken



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantastiken/pseuds/fantastiken
Summary: Sometimes, Jaehwan felt like a stranger in his own body. Sometimes, it was the complete opposite.





	

**Author's Note:**

> cw: vague depictions of depression and self-harm

Jaehwan had always thought his mere existence was a conundrum. He had never fully understood how being alive worked, how he thought, spoke, breathed, felt. How did all those things come together to form what everyone called _Jaehwan?_ It was odd, and at times he felt like he would never truly understand his own nature. 

What color is happiness, anyway? 

Feeling things worked in a strange way for him, too. The synesthesia in him was so present he could almost feel the palms of his hands tickle and his hair stand on end whenever he so much as looked at the darkened sky of a storm or a vibrant sunrise. His vision would go blurry when he listened to certain songs, and his mouth would taste like cotton candy if he touched a soft blanket. Sometimes that made him feel like a stranger in his own body, not familiar with any of the sensations, but sometimes it was the complete opposite. 

He battled with himself and felt at peace all at once, or none at the same time. 

Sometimes, Jaehwan felt blue. Blue like rain was pouring down on him, merciless, and water was slowly soaking through his skin. He drowned in blue, sky light and ocean deep and every shade in between, because the asphyxiating feeling was so strong he could even see it. Phosphenes would then cloud his vision and he’d only feel cobalt crawling up his arms like electric vines of ivy, cold and fizzy. 

Some other times though, Jaehwan stuttered—he felt red, almost purple with a fury that threatened to choke him in a very different way. His hands shook, his nose stung, his eyes became unfocused with a burgundy fog and he’d forget everything but the wrath that bubbled in his chest hot, corrosive. If he looked, there would be no blisters covering his skin, but he would feel them popping up red and angry, almost alive in his poisonous mood. He wanted to destroy everything—even himself. 

It wasn’t rare that, from time to time and out of nowhere, Jaehwan was invaded by a rush of emotions so varied and often contradictory that he felt like a rainbow was bleeding into his lungs thickly. The only way he could describe the sensation was saying that he felt like light reflecting through a prism. He felt light, disoriented, a little tipped off-balance and so full of thoughts—some didn’t even seem to be his, or conform to reality in any way—that he could barely tell what his color was anymore. 

But there were times—there were times too when Jaehwan felt empty, painfully void of any emotion and thought and like he’d been covered in the most muted grey hue in and out. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a withered tree, hollow trunk standing in the middle of a tempest with nothing to do except being there, harbouring cold death. He felt nothing inside, nothing outside, nothing. Those times, he opened his eyes again, stared at the ceiling and hoped to feel, hoped to really see something that wasn’t an illusion, a mirage or a metaphor, but it never happened. Jaehwan’s eyes only perceived grey, grey, grey and the most terrifying streaks of blue, green, purple of his own veins, thin roots invading his translucent skin. Sometimes too, he would stare with empty eyes at the occasional upstroke of red painting the ominous canvas of his arms.


End file.
